For some, time for appraisal after Katrina
The only thing recognizable when Cathy Broadway and her family returned home after hurricane Katrina ripped through the Mississippi Gulf Coast was her sports car, flipped upside down and buried up to its wheels in sand.
Her daughter's car was missing, the family's Jet Ski was gone, and their home had disappeared. In fact, the entire neighborhood was gone. All that was left was a simple concrete slab to remind them of where their structure once stood.
"It was a pretty two-story house, on stilts, with a big front porch," said Ms. Broadway, as she wiped back tears. "It makes you a little sad to see a dish here and a picture there - everything from 20 years of marriage scattered about. But hey, it's just stuff. The family's safe, and we will be fine."
The Broadways are returning to their home for the first time since hurricane Katrina hit and, like many others, they are finding the damage far worse than originally reported.
Along this stretch of the Mississippi Gulf Coast - the hardest hit area - entire communities were scratched off the surface of the planet, their timbers lying in heaps. Homes were lifted off their foundations and floated into town. And dozens of people who did not heed the evacuation warning are still missing.
For their part, the Broadways say they love it here and will rebuild when they can. For others, moving away from the coast can't happen fast enough. But the No. 1 priority for everyone right now is finding a place to live - at least temporarily.
Across Louisiana and Mississippi, the number of displaced people is climbing - especially with the situation worsening in New Orleans, pop. 485,000. At least 1 million residents across the region, and possibly many more, remain without electricity, and some are also without clean drinking water. Shelters are still open, hotels are stuffed to the gills, and parking lots are becoming makeshift campgrounds.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has told his residents to find a temporary place to live and get comfortable. "This is going to be a long, hard ordeal," he said in a press conference after surveying the coast on Monday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering several options to accommodate the massive number of displaced people. Tent cities, cruise ships, mobile-home parks, and "floating dormitories," which the agency uses to house its own employees, could spring up in the region.
Louisiana officials have asked residents not to return to New Orleans for a month while they sort out the city's many infrastructure problems.
"We're leaving the state as soon as we can," says Colleen Paulson, clutching her toddler and waiting on a muddy curb for rescue. Her family did not evacuate during the storm. Both their house and car were destroyed, so they have nowhere to live and no means to leave.
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